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Peter Heather

Alaric, Gothic leader c. 395–410 ce who created the *Visigoths. By 408 he had united the Tervingi and Greuthungi who had crossed the Danube in 376 with survivors of Radagaisus' force which ...
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Alaric, Gothic leader c. 395–410 ce who created the *Visigoths. By 408 he had united the Tervingi and Greuthungi who had crossed the Danube in 376 with survivors of Radagaisus' force which had invaded Italy in 406. He approached the Roman state with a mixture of force and diplomacy to extract an advantageous, but above all permanent, settlement. In search of this, he switched the focus of his operations from the Balkans and the eastern half of the empire, to Italy and the west (first in 402, then permanently after 408). He sacked Rome on 24 August 410 when the emperor *Honorius refused to negotiate; he died a few months later, after briefly threatening to transfer his Goths to Africa.

Peter Heather

Attila, king of the *Huns (435/440–453 ce), at first ruled jointly with his brother Bleda whom he murdered in 445. Member of a dynasty which had united previously separate Hunnic groups ...
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Attila, king of the *Huns (435/440–453 ce), at first ruled jointly with his brother Bleda whom he murdered in 445. Member of a dynasty which had united previously separate Hunnic groups around itself, together with many subject peoples (the majority Germanic) to create a substantial empire in central Europe. His major military campaigns were those of 442–443 and 447 against the Balkan provinces of the eastern empire; that of 451, when he invaded Gaul but was defeated at the Catalaunian plains by Roman and allied (especially Visigothic) forces under Flavius *Aetius; and that of 452, when he invaded Italy and sacked several important cities. He intended to invade the east again in 453, but died during the night after his marriage to a girl called Ildico. His campaigns were pursued in support of a diplomatic policy whose main aim seems to have been the extraction of money.

Scott DeGregorio

Bede (Beda Venerabilis) was Anglo-Saxon England’s most prolific Latin writer, and indeed one of the most distinguished authors of the early Middle Ages. At the end of his most celebrated work, ...
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Bede (Beda Venerabilis) was Anglo-Saxon England’s most prolific Latin writer, and indeed one of the most distinguished authors of the early Middle Ages. At the end of his most celebrated work, Historia ecclesiastical gentis Anglorum (HE), he provides a cursory autobiographical note which remains the starting point for what we know about his life and many writings.1 Born in the kingdom of Northumbria, at the age of seven he was given by his parents to the monastery at Wearmouth, founded in 674, to be reared and educated. When a sister monastery was founded in 681 some seven miles away at Jarrow, Bede was probably among the monks transferred to that new site, and there he remained until his death in 735, at the age of fifty-nine. Ordained deacon at the age of nineteen and priest at the age of thirty, he devoted the whole of his life to monastic observance and scriptural study, memorably stating that “amid the observance of the discipline of the Rule and the daily task of singing in the church, it has always been my delight to learn or to teach or to write.”2 The fruits of this labour are readily evidenced by the long list of his writings that concludes Bede’s note, with its some forty works in various genres—impressive in any era, to be sure, but not least in one popularly understood as “dark” in comparison to the luminous achievements of the classical past.Less

Raymond Davis

Flavius Valerius Constantius I, (perhaps Flavius Iulius before 293; nicknamed, not before the 6th cent., Chlorus), born no later than 250 ce, of Illyrian stock; stories of his relationship with ...
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Flavius Valerius Constantius I, (perhaps Flavius Iulius before 293; nicknamed, not before the 6th cent., Chlorus), born no later than 250 ce, of Illyrian stock; stories of his relationship with *Claudius II are fictions of *Constantine's propagandists. Constantius served as an army officer, as governor of Dalmatia, and possibly as praetorian prefect of Maximianus Augustus (*Maximian), whose daughter or stepdaughter Theodora he married, having put away Helena, the mother of Constantine I. On the establishment of the *tetrarchy*Diocletian appointed him Caesar, Maximian invested him at Milan (*Mediolanum, 1 March 293), and he took charge of Gaul, basing himself mainly at Trier (*Augusta Treverorum). His first task was to recover NE Gaul, held, with Britain, by the usurper *Carausius. In summer 293 he stormed Boulogne; but *Allectus, who murdered Carausius, retained Britain. Many of Carausius’ defeated barbarian allies, Chamavi and Frisii, were settled within the empire. In 296, with Maximian guarding the Rhine, Constantius and his praetorian prefect, Asclepiodotus, took ship for *Britain.Less

John Frederick Drinkwater

Franks (Franci), a Germanic people who conquered Gallia (*Gaul), and made it Francia (France). Their adoption of Gallo-Roman Catholic culture was the seed of French civilization and, hence, that of ...
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Franks (Franci), a Germanic people who conquered Gallia (*Gaul), and made it Francia (France). Their adoption of Gallo-Roman Catholic culture was the seed of French civilization and, hence, that of medieval and modern western Europe. Despite their great importance, their first appearance is late (c. 260 ce), their name (‘the bold’, ‘the fierce’) suggesting a coalition of *German tribes on the middle and lower Rhine. From then to the end of the 4th cent. they caused the empire frequent trouble, though they also gave it loyal generals and soldiers. Indeed, 4th-cent. emperors allowed some Frankish settlement on Roman soil in return for military service. However, during the early 5th cent., when the Rhine frontier weakened and the German occupation of Gaul began in earnest, the Franks, like the *Alamanni, seemed destined to be eclipsed by relative newcomers. There was some movement across the Rhine into Belgica Secunda, but it was not until the late 5th and early 6th cents. that the various Frankish groups were united by the Salians Childeric and Clovis, and moved south to break the *Visigoths and *Burgundians.Less

Peter Heather

Goths, a Germanic people, who, according to Jordanes' Getica, originated in Scandinavia. The Cernjachov culture of the later 3rd and 4th cents. ce beside the Black Sea, and the Polish and ...
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Goths, a Germanic people, who, according to Jordanes' Getica, originated in Scandinavia. The Cernjachov culture of the later 3rd and 4th cents. ce beside the Black Sea, and the Polish and Byelorussian Wielbark cultures of the 1st–3rd. cents. ce, provide evidence of a Gothic migration down the Vistula to the Black Sea, but no clear trail leads to Scandinavia. In the mid-3rd. cent. ce, Goths from the Black Sea region (see heruli) launched heavy attacks upon Asia Minor and the Roman Balkans. These were eventually halted by the victories of *Gallienus, *Claudius II (Gothicus), and *Aurelian. The Goths have usually been viewed as from this date divided into two—Visigoths and Ostrogoths—but the Gothic world of the 4th cent. probably comprised a number of chieftainships; how many is unknowable. Visigoths and Ostrogoths were actually the product of a later convulsion occasioned by the inroads of the *Huns.Less

E. D. Hunt

Helena Augusta, mother of *Constantine I. Born of humble origins at Drepanum in Bithynia, she became c.
ce 270 the first wife (or perhaps concubine) of the future emperor ...
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Helena Augusta, mother of *Constantine I. Born of humble origins at Drepanum in Bithynia, she became c.ce 270 the first wife (or perhaps concubine) of the future emperor Constantius I. On Constantius’ later dynastic marriage to Theodora, Helena lapsed into obscurity, returning to prominence after her son's elevation as emperor in 306; she followed Constantine in adopting Christianity. In 324 she was given the title Augusta, and c.327 made a celebrated imperial progress through the eastern provinces as far as Jerusalem, where she engaged in charitable activities and was associated with the building of Constantine's new churches at the holy places. In Christian tradition her journey became a model of Holy Land pilgrimage, and by the later 4th cent. she was believed to have discovered relics of the True Cross.

R. S. O. Tomlin

Valens, Roman emperor (364–78 ce), the younger brother of *Valentinian I, who proclaimed him emperor of the eastern empire. He lacked his brother's military ability and forceful ...
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Valens, Roman emperor (364–78 ce), the younger brother of *Valentinian I, who proclaimed him emperor of the eastern empire. He lacked his brother's military ability and forceful personality, but was an obedient colleague. His principal achievement was to reduce taxation by careful economy. Unlike his brother, he was a baptized Arian (see arianism) and half-heartedly persecuted the eastern Catholics. After surviving a rebellion led by *Julian's kinsman Procopius (365–6), he was able to impose terms upon the *Goths (369) and to intervene successfully in *Armenia (from 371), thanks to the competent generals he had inherited. However, when the Goths sought refuge from the *Huns in 376, they were allowed to cross the Danube and settle under Roman supervision. This policy led to disaster, for when the Goths rebelled, Valens' attempts to coerce them ended in the battle of Adrianople (9 August 378), in which he and two-thirds of his army were killed. His body was never recovered.